


Playing Favorites

by PunishedPyotr



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Choking, M/M, after a fashion, inappropriate use of rubber bands, itt: Ocelot molests his own arm, less romantic than the summary makes it sound, reupload
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 12:50:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13927470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunishedPyotr/pseuds/PunishedPyotr
Summary: They had been married in Lyon on an operation table, under bright surgical lighting and nylon sutures, and had honeymooned in an isolated hospital room, tucked in the back of the building, still groggy from anesthesia.





	Playing Favorites

Ocelot had never really thought much about ghosts - never stopped to consider if they were real or not, although if pressed he might have admitted he leaned towards ‘real’ - but never in his life did he understand why people found them _scary_. He just didn’t _get_ what people found so _frightening_ about “here is a person who we know to be dead, yet it appears they are not.” It just seemed so… inane.

And then he got the arm transplant. And Liquid’s ghost started harassing him. And he understood.

Sort of.

He never found reason to be afraid of Liquid - not in life, and not in death either. But nowadays he _did_ find him… off-putting. Unnerving. It was the way he appeared to him, mostly. The first couple times Ocelot had seen him (at first just in reflections, or out of the corner of his eye, or when he had just woken up and was still half-asleep - but Liquid had appeared more, and more obviously, as he got bolder, or perhaps more powerful, or just more used to functioning as a non-corporeal being) he had looked exactly the way he looked when Ocelot found his body lying outside next to two upturned Jeeps. He was flushed and waxy, with flat eyes and blue lips, dried blood on his skin and a bit of snow in his hair, and Ocelot understood that if he was unsettled it was because seeing a _corpse_ walk around was nothing if not a plunge deep into uncanny valley.

Then Liquid started appearing as he had a few hours before his death, when he was still very much alive, and Ocelot understood a little better. Part of it was lighting - the illumination on Liquid’s body never seemed to quite match up with the ambient lighting of where Ocelot was, and he didn’t cast a shadow, either. Part of it was the lack of interaction with the environment - if Liquid walked by a curtain, or a desk with unweighted papers on them, there was no almost imperceptible rustle. If he sat or laid on something soft, it never depressed or wrinkled under his non-existent weight. All his interactions with the environment were purely cosmetic and likely habitual on his end; he stepped out of the way when people walked by him (since, much to his constant frustration, it wasn’t like he could tell them, “No, _you_ move”) but sometimes people walked right _though_ him and that was always a sight to see (especially since Liquid was more uncomfortable with it than Ocelot was).

There were more subtle things, too. He’d talk to Ocelot (he never shut up, really) and although his lips would move, to Ocelot it was more akin to talking on Codec: Liquid’s voice sounded like it was originating in or at least very close to Ocelot’s ear, no matter how far away he _appeared_ to be. (It did seem as though he was tied within a certain distance from Ocelot, though.) And, subtler, he lacked the little things that Ocelot should have picked up on almost subconsciously, like a scent, or the air around him being disturbed by his breathing, or indeed the sound of his breathing or if he was close enough, his heart beating. On some deep, primordial level, Ocelot suspected that something was off _there_ , too, with a complete lack of infinitesimal gravity between their respective masses, since being a ghost and all Liquid lacked mass entirely.

It was impossible for Ocelot to look at Liquid and be able to acknowledge him, on the most basic, instinctual, animal level of thought, as something that belonged in this world.

But he got used to it. He could get used to anything.

Even a vengeful ghost.

Especially since, currently, Liquid’s vengeance wasn’t coming down any harder than just being mildly annoying. Having your entire body reduced to only a hand and a few inches of forearm would do that you.

“One of these days, he’s going to get suspicious of the way you keep holing yourself up in your room like this.”

Ocelot rolled his eyes. “Would you prefer I didn’t? Being _holed up in my room_ is the only way I can afford to pay any attention to you.”

Liquid scowled. “You think this is about _attention?_ ”

Oh, he didn’t doubt that it was. Liquid craved attention more than anything else, and unlike Solidus he never cared _how_ he got it, just that he _did_. But Ocelot didn’t say that. Riling up Liquid always lead to a headache - literally, nowadays, as Liquid effectively drained Ocelot’s energy to fuel himself and his emotional displays. Small wonder Ocelot was so damn tired all the time.

(On the plus side, the fact that Liquid was leeching off of Ocelot’s energy meant that he quickly figured out it was in his best interests to let Ocelot get a full night’s rest as often as possible, plus naps when opportune. He disappeared entirely whenever Ocelot went to bed, and very rarely took advantage of the relative mental vulnerability of sleep to take over Ocelot’s body and stretch his legs.)

“And anyway,” Ocelot said, idly spinning his revolver in his good hand, “he’s already noticed. He thinks I’ve taken ill, remember?”

“He just thinks you’ve gone mad. The others, they call you ‘Crazy Ivan’ behind your back, didn’t you know that?”

“It’s pronounced ‘ih- _vahn_ ’, for one thing, and for another thing, I _think_ I know Solidus better than you do, Liquid. You didn’t even know he _existed_ until you started possessing my arm.”

“It’s _my_ arm and _you_ stole it.” At this point, that exact response from Liquid every time Ocelot referred to the transplanted hand as his own seemed almost automatic. Ocelot was fairly certain that Liquid hardly thought about the particulars of arm-stealing anymore and just said that on reflex. He certainly seemed pleased enough at having a second chance at life (or however many chances this was, the man should have died four times at Shadow Moses _alone_ but survived handily until FOXDIE finally got to him), even if it was like… this.

“You weren’t using it.” He put his revolver down.

“And whose fault was _that?_ ”

Ocelot sighed, twitching his moustache in irritation. To say Liquid was not happy about finding out that he’d been played like the entire damn orchestra would be putting it very, very mildly, and unlike the arm situation, there was nothing about _that_ that he could potentially use for his own benefit and therefore seize upon instead.

“Let’s not have this discussion again today, Liquid.”

“Fuck you.”

There it was, Liquid getting frustrated and angry enough to resort to childish insults. At least it was a different sort of angry than the kind that lead to rants that could last for _hours_ before Ocelot ignored him enough for him to shut up with an insulted huff. Ocelot rubbed his elbow at the seam between his arm and Liquid’s, where an irritating, dolorous itch never seemed to go away.

Sometimes he wished he could have avoided the entire incident at Shadow Moses. It wasn’t quite regret. Just an unfortunate circumstance.

“You’ve got that wistful look in your eyes again,” Liquid said critically, leaning a bit over in Ocelot’s direction, his eyelids slightly lowered in unimpressed boredom.

Ocelot grunted noncommittally.

“Thinking about my father again?” Disdain dripped from his voice.

“After a fashion.” The other members of FOXHOUND had been his friends (except Mantis, he’d never gotten along with him) but he’d still sacrificed them without hesitation to further Solidus’ goals - and now he was planning on backstabbing Solidus as well, which Liquid knew about but didn’t know the true reason why, and chose to keep quiet about because he thought it would serve Solidus right to burn at the traitorous hands of his puss-in-boots.

Layer upon layer, deceit upon deceit, and Ocelot had almost wanted to laugh when he realized that Liquid honestly thought _he_ was manipulating _Ocelot_ now.

“I wonder, what would he thought of this whole Patriot business…”

“Who can say,” Ocelot said, swallowing an ironic smile. Liquid didn’t know _anything_ , just that he hated the Patriots and wanted them destroyed. He couldn’t care less about how or why they came about.

And it was a shame, really, the fact that all three of Les Enfants Terribles could have made valuable allies in Ocelot’s secret war. But he’d never had much of a chance with Solid to begin with, Solidus was an idiot but was stubborn enough that Ocelot couldn’t make any real adjustments to his grand idealistic plans, and Liquid… well, he would have been _perfect_ , would have worked alongside Ocelot very nicely, except that the second he found out that John was still alive he wouldn’t care about anything besides finding and killing him. Considering Ocelot mostly wanted the world rid of the Patriots so they could no longer hold John in his artificial coma, that would present a _bit_ of a problem.

So he’d chosen instead to get rid of him even though he was admittedly very fond of the man, and here they were, like the universe was mocking Ocelot for playing favorites with John’s sons.

_If you_ like _him so much,_ it said, _why don’t you just marry him?_ And they had been married in Lyon on an operation table, under bright surgical lighting and nylon sutures, and had honeymooned in an isolated hospital room, tucked in the back of the building, still groggy from anesthesia.

Liquid was looking at him suspiciously.

“What do you want?” Ocelot said, raising one eyebrow tiredly.

“…it’s nothing. Just counting my blessings that I don’t actually know what’s going on in your head. No wonder Mantis didn’t like you.”

“Here I thought he didn’t like me because he _couldn’t_ read my mind.”

“True. If he had been able to…” He trailed off into a moody silence.

He’d trusted Ocelot. It hadn’t been his first mistake, but it was the one that had caught up with him.

“If you have nothing better to do than brood, can you do me a favor and go dormant for a bit?” Ocelot said dryly. (‘Going dormant’ was the term they used for it, but it seemed to Ocelot it was more akin to Liquid ceasing to be for several hours instead of sleeping. For one thing, he apparently didn’t dream while dormant, and for another thing, the existence of his internal clock was suspect. Not to mention he had no need of rest, due to him sapping Ocelot’s energy - it was just something he did to kill time and/or give Ocelot the bare minimum of privacy.)

Liquid scoffed at him. “I am not _brooding_.”

“You are. You’re worried about something.”

“Tch.”

“You can tell me what it is that’s bothering you,” Ocelot said, using the same inviting, almost intimate tone of voice he’d often used on him back in FOXHOUND.

Liquid glared at him shortly, then turned away, crossing his arms and staring at the opposite wall, jaw set. He looked like a pouting child, especially considering he was still sitting on Ocelot’s bed with his legs folded in front of him Indian-style.

“No?” Ocelot said.

“No,” Liquid said flatly.

Ocelot shrugged. “As you wish,” he said, absentmindedly picking up a rubber band and stretching it between his fingers. He hadn’t meant to take it back with him from the clinic.

There was silence for almost a full minute, and then Liquid fell prey to his craving for attention again. “I just think-“ he said forcefully, then cut himself off, then continued in a more normal voice, “I just think that Solidus believing you’ve taken ill isn’t a good sign. He even had you take that blood test…”

“Ah, yes,” Ocelot said, still fiddling with the rubber band, “you’re concerned that they might find some concrete proof that you’re hitching a ride in my head, and your brother might try to persuade me to get rid of this hand and use a prosthetic instead. Thus severing your last connection with this world…”

Liquid still didn’t look at him. “I think I have enough unfinished business to qualify as a _connection_ , Ocelot.”

“I’m not disputing that you have unfinished business - just that you’d ever be able to finish it if you manage to lose your access to the body of the son of a spirit medium. Am I wrong?”

“…”

“Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about it, Liquid. I suppose they could look for evidence of a strange immune response to your arm, but I doubt they’ll find it. My body never rejected the transplant.” Ocelot had different things to worry about with regard to the blood test, himself - you never knew what unsavory types could do with your DNA if they got their hands on it. At least the clinic Solidus had forced him to go to had no ties to the Patriots - and he should know, of course. The worst thing that had happened _there_ was that the nurse had tied the rubber band around Ocelot’s left arm too tightly while finding a vein to draw blood from. He couldn’t feel his fingers by the time she was done.

At least she’d gone for the left arm instead of the right, though. There had been one time when Ocelot had slept on his right arm kind of strangely, and Liquid bitched about it _all day_. Evidently having his circulation somewhat hindered had given him whatever the limb equivalent of a headache was and he did _not_ want Ocelot to ever do that again.

He stretched the stolen rubber band between his fingers and he got a really, really awful idea. Liquid glanced over at him, suddenly suspicious again.

“Your heart rate went up,” he said warily.

“Did it?” Ocelot said, watching Liquid out of the corner of his eye.

Liquid narrowed his eyes at him. “There’s something else that’s bothering me now,” he said slowly, “Ocelot… if you’re so convinced that removing my arm would send me on to the next life whether I want to or not, why do you keep me around?”

“That’s a loaded question,” Ocelot said, wrapping the rubber band around his right arm, just above his elbow.

“What the fuck are you doing.”

He used his teeth to tighten it, and Liquid’s hand clenched into a very tight fist as Liquid himself (or the spectre of him, anyway) jumped up off the bed.

“I said what the _fuck_ do you think you’re doing, Ocelot? What is this?!”

“It’s a rubber band,” Ocelot said like it was obvious, which it was.

“That isn’t what I- I-“ It was almost funny to watch Liquid’s hand bend back towards Ocelot’s shoulder, trying to claw at the rubber band that was several inches too low to reach. Liquid’s ghost clutched his chest, gasping, but since he had no lungs to draw air into it seemed that the instinctual move only served to fuel his growing panic.

Oxygen deprivation.

Sometimes you just had to get a little creative.

Ocelot grimaced as he felt the now-familiar sensation of a spike being driven through his head - Liquid trying to take over his body. He concentrated hard on not losing out to him, but the powerful desperation of it wore off after a few moments, and Liquid’s ghost fell to his knees, still struggling to breathe like he even could in the first place. Ocelot, who was breathing a little hard himself, noted that Liquid’s legs were clipping into the ground like poorly-programmed VR.

“That didn’t go so well, did it, Liquid?” Ocelot said, ignoring his lingering headache, grabbing Liquid’s arm by the wrist and wrenching it away from his shoulder.

Liquid growled like a wounded animal. “Ocelot- you-“

“Hm?” Ocelot pressed his thumb into Liquid’s palm until his hand spasmed in pain. He was probably getting pins and needles by now, which couldn’t be pleasant considering this arm encompassed the entirety of his physical sensation right now.

“Stop it! Stop!!”

“Make me.”

Liquid glared murderously up at Ocelot, snarling, teeth bared, his outline blurring ever so slightly. His hand was trying very hard to scratch Ocelot’s, but while Ocelot had been nice enough to take his right glove off a while ago, he had kept his left glove on and there was no way Liquid’s nails could get through the leather.

Ocelot smiled unpleasantly. “You can’t.”

“S-Stop this.”

He pressed harder, and Liquid’s face tensed in pain. “Feels like you can’t breathe, right? Perhaps you’re a bit disoriented? I suppose you can’t really feel dizzy or lightheaded if you don’t have a head…”

“I- I can’t feel-“

“Starting to go numb?”

Another growl. Ocelot could feel his own heart beating where his fingers were curled around the back of Liquid’s wrist. Liquid was right. His heart rate _had_ gone up.

Maybe he was enjoying watching Liquid angrily struggle for oxygen a _bit_ too much.

Although the hatred burning in his eyes when he looked at him… that wasn’t as fun.

“Why do I keep you around, you asked?” Ocelot said in a low voice.

“Let g-go of me, Ocelot!”

Ocelot let go of Liquid’s hand - his fingers twitched uselessly - and pulled his glove off with his teeth, then raked his nails down Liquid’s wrist. Liquid made a choked noise, his fake body on the floor hunching in on itself.

“Because you’re a little shit, Eli, and I love to put you in your place.”

Liquid scrambled to his feet, hissing, uncoordinated, and lunged towards Ocelot - but passed harmlessly right through both him and his chair. “Don’t,” he snarled, on the floor in front of Ocelot again (if only he weren’t a ghost, Ocelot could have put his boot right on his face), “ _don’t_ call me by that name…“

Ocelot let go of Liquid’s hand. It wasn’t moving at all now - Liquid’s ghost was starting to flicker and fade, the pattern of the carpet just barely visible through him at times.

He didn’t seem to realize that if he gave up and just went dormant, Ocelot would stop tormenting him. He was desperately struggling to hold onto consciousness, simply because it was his instinct to do so. Although surely at this point it was near impossible for him to think, anyway…

Ocelot had mercy on him and slipped his finger between his arm and rubber band, pulling it back enough that some blood was allowed to flow back into Liquid’s arm. The fingers curled slowly. On the floor, Liquid propped himself up and stared up at Ocelot, confusion and deliriousness written all over his face. He was still panting. By degrees, his appearance solidified again.

Then he growled, and his wrist jerked. Ocelot snapped the rubber band back into place and Liquid’s eyes widened. Within seconds he was on the ground again, shaking, his ineffectual gasps turning to coughs. His eyes were still wide, staring at nothing, and even from up here Ocelot could see the panic in them.

It was like putting down a feral, rabid beast.

Ocelot pressed his thumbnail against a vein on Liquid’s wrist, now swollen and sharply standing out under his skin. Very likely it would be extra sensitive now... no, no reaction from Liquid. It seemed he had gone numb enough that even pain couldn’t cut through it anymore. And he was fading again… if Ocelot kept his arm tourniqueted like this much longer, Liquid would ‘pass out’ and go dormant, and the game would be over.

He undid the rubber band. There was a thin strap of white just above his elbow where he had tied it. Liquid’s fingers moved, almost experimentally, into a fist, and again Liquid pushed himself up off the floor, his harsh gasps sounding in Ocelot’s ear. For the moment he wasn’t even angry, just grateful to be- well, _alive_ definitely wasn’t the right word, but it was doubtful that that even occurred to him now.

“Ocelot… what… the hell…”

Just as he was starting to get opaque and no longer blurry, just when Ocelot figured the numbness and most of the pins and needles had gone away, Ocelot tied the rubber band again - not as tight as before, _just_ tight enough that the tips of his fingers would tingle painfully, and that every sensation would be drawn to a sharp focus.

And that Liquid’s weakened, delirious state would continue a little while longer.

“There’s another reason why I keep you around,” Ocelot said coolly, running his thumb up Liquid’s still-swollen vein, his touch gentle now.

Liquid stared at him in confusion, wincing slightly, and his cheeks were starting to get faintly red; Ocelot smiled to himself. As he’d observed, nothing Liquid’s ghost did was wholly unconscious - if he was blushing, it was only because he was embarrassed.

Or, perhaps, aroused.

“Does this feel good, Liquid?” Ocelot purred, brushing the skin of his inner wrist, feeling a little tremor there.

“W-What? G… Get your filthy hand _off me_ -”

Ocelot raised Liquid’s hand to his mouth and bit down, hard.

“AAAAAGH-!!”

“I love to watch you squirm.”

He flicked his tongue over the fresh wound - it was shallow, the only points of blood came from his canines - and listened to Liquid’s groan. He sounded dazed, mostly. Also like he wanted to rip Ocelot’s throat out, but if his cornered, cringing body language was anything to go by, he just wanted to get rid of his tormentor and the fact that it was _Ocelot_ , his hated former ally, was barely registering with him… if it was at all.

“Stop- don’t-“

Ocelot ran his mouth up the hand to his fingers, pressing his tongue into the warm spaces between. And then down - kissing the delicate skin at his wrist, ignoring the way Liquid’s fingers ineffectually scrabbled against his ear. With his own hand he traced the seam of their flesh, the line where the skin dipped slightly in a scar that wasn’t even very old yet.

“Stop it… don’t- don’t touch me…”

Liquid was curled completely in on himself, arms pressed against his stomach and face pressed against his knees, as small as possible - all Ocelot could really see of him was that he was shaking just as much as his hand was. Ocelot wished he _had_ a body, so that he could lean down and grab a fistful of that pretty blond hair and force him to look up into his face- but he could hear perfectly well his labored facsimile of breathing, and he could hear, too, his stifled, reluctant, _breathless_ moaning.

“S-Shit…”

That was pretty good on its own.

“You know, Liquid,” Ocelot murmured against his palm, “there’s one more reason why I bother keeping you around when you really are a nuisance.”

“Why… why are you… doing this…?”

“Because I love you.”

A choked growl. Liquid’s fingers flexed. “Shut up.”

“Out of you and your brothers - _you’re_ the one most like Big Boss.”

“Shut up, shut _up-_ shut the _fuck_ up-“

But it was true. Only Liquid had inherited that easy, natural charisma that John had had, the kind that contrasted so starkly with Ocelot’s calculated, manufactured personability. Only he managed to transform his social awkwardness into some je ne sais quoi that inspired the loyalty of those around him… just as John had, just like Solidus couldn’t, just like Solid had never even tried.

Small wonder Ocelot had managed to get so attached to him, even when he was a child, even when he had tried not to, even when he knew he’d do everything but pull the trigger.

“ _Leave me alone-_ “

Ocelot broke the rubber band with a _snap_ , giving Liquid back his oxygen, ignoring the insistent heat pooled in his stomach, ending the game.

He’d said too much already.

He gave Liquid the courtesy of not looking at him as he slowly pulled himself together, instead watching the white strip of flesh where the rubber band had been slowly turn back to his natural skin color. It didn’t take too long; Ocelot was already pale. But Liquid had always been quick to recover, too.

Ocelot was expecting an explosion of anger, but it didn’t come. He glanced over at Liquid.

He was sitting in the middle of the floor and staring at him, his face still flushed and his expression unreadable.

“Yes?” Ocelot said at length.

“If you _ever_ do or say anything like any of that again,” Liquid said, deliberately, “then the next time you fall asleep I’ll take that revolver of yours and blow your brains out.” He scowled suddenly, and it felt like everything had gone back to normal after that admittedly surreal interlude. “I know you’re my only shot at finishing my unfinished business, but I won’t suffer your… your… whatever _that_ was.”

“Hm.”

Liquid looked away purposefully. “Anyway, let’s just pretend this never happened.” And before Ocelot could respond, he was gone - gone dormant.

Ocelot blinked. That was surprisingly… forgiving of him. Maybe he was genuinely concerned that if he reacted poorly enough, Ocelot really _would_ get rid of him. Maybe he thought that Ocelot had a fantasy that he needed to keep going on some level because he’d just learned a very hard lesson about just how much at Ocelot’s mercy he was.

Or maybe he just appreciated the attention.


End file.
